Three die in crash of helicopter flying to Shands to pick up donor organ

Monday

Dec 26, 2011 at 2:07 PMDec 27, 2011 at 10:17 AM

A helicopter en route from a Jacksonville hospital to Shands at the University of Florida to pick up an organ to transplant to a patient crashed in rural Clay County on Monday morning, killing three.

By Chad SmithStaff writer

A helicopter en route from a Jacksonville hospital to Shands at the University of Florida to pick up a heart to transplant to another patient crashed in rural Clay County on Monday morning, killing all three people aboard.

Two of the people killed were Mayo Clinic Hospital employees — Luis Bonilla, a cardiac surgeon, and David Hines, an organ-procurement technician — who were traveling to Gainesville to “harvest organs” from a donor patient at Shands, the Mayo Clinic announced in a statement. Their ages weren't immediately available.

The third victim was an unidentified pilot.

The Bell 206 helicopter, operated by SK Jets in St. Augustine, crashed at 5:53 a.m. about 12 miles northeast of Palatka, said Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Bergen said it was not clear what caused the crash but that the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate.

Kathy Giery, a spokeswoman for Shands' LifeQuest Organ Recovery Service, said the heart was not able to be transported to Jacksonville. Finding a new match for that heart would have taken longer than the roughly four-hour window between the harvest and transplant operations.

“In a last-minute situation like this one, there is no time, actually, to regroup and start over,” Giery said.

Alachua County Sheriff's Office Lt. Kevin Oberlin said the agency's helicopter was dispatched to Clay County to assist in the search for the wreckage.

In a statement, the Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit medical group with three major hospitals in Jacksonville, Rochester, Minn., and Phoenix and several smaller hospitals and clinics in the Midwest, said the helicopter had been located and called the crash a “most unfortunate tragedy.”

The statement said the helicopter left Jacksonville at about 5:45 a.m. but never reached Gainesville.

“Mayo is working internally to support the family and employees of those lost in this most unfortunate tragedy,” the statement said.

Company officials were quoted in a subsequent news release expressing their condolences.

“As we mourn this tragic event, we will remember the selfless and intense dedication they brought to making a difference in the lives of our patients,” John Noseworthy, the president and CEO, said in the statement. “We recognize the commitment transplant teams make every day in helping patients at Mayo Clinic and beyond. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families.”

Layne Smith, a spokesman for the Jacksonville hospital, said he wasn't sure whether the patient was able to find another donor.

When asked how often doctors and technicians like Bonilla and Hines made those kinds of trips, Smith said: “Every day. A couple of them a day.”